High Incidence of Inappropriate Alarms in Patients with Wearable Cardioverter-Defibrillators: Findings from the Swiss WCD Registry.

ABSTRACT: The wearable cardioverter defibrillator (WCD) uses surface electrodes to detect arrhythmia before initiating a treatment sequence. However, it is also prone to inappropriate detection due to artefacts. The aim of this study is to assess the alarm burden in patients and its impact on clinical outcomes. Patients from the nationwide Swiss WCD Registry were included. Clinical characteristics and data were obtained from the WCDs. Arrhythmia recordings ≥30 s in length were analysed and categorized as VT/VF, atrial fibrillation (AF), supraventricular tachycardia (SVT) or artefact. A total of 10653 device alarms were documented in 324 of 456 patients (71.1%) over a mean WCD wear-time of 2.0 ± 1.6 months. Episode duration was 30 s or more in 2996 alarms (28.2%). One hundred and eleven (3.7%) were V

SUBMITTER: Kovacs B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8432131 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature